The Odeon

The Odeon opened in 1980 in a former cafeteria and more or less invented the downtown brasserie: art deco bones, a long bar, a red neon sign that became the cover of Bright Lights, Big City and shorthand for a whole era of New York nightlife. The eighties crowd is gone; the restaurant, remarkably, is not — it still serves steak frites and martinis to a room of Tribeca families, old regulars, and people who read about it once.

It works because it never coasted. The food is better than a landmark's needs to be, the service is brisk and warm, and the sidewalk tables under the neon remain one of downtown's great places to watch an evening assemble itself.